Windows 8 on the desktop—an awkward hybrid

Windows 8 has a new tablet friendly UI, but how is it on the desktop?

Windows 8's new user interface has proven nothing short of polarizing. The hybrid operating system pairs a new GUI concept, the touch-friendly Metro interface, to the traditional windows, icons, menus, and pointer concept that Windows users have depended on for decades. In so doing, it removes Windows mainstays such as the Start button and Start menu.

While few are concerned about Windows 8's usability as a tablet operating system, desktop users remain wary. Will the new operating system take a huge step back in terms of both productivity and usability? Specific concerns voiced in our forums have included the mandated fullscreen view and a lack of resizable windows, the tight restrictions on what applications are permitted to do, and the automatic termination of background applications.

The good news is that these specific criticisms are largely off-base. Windows 8 includes a full desktop with all the applications and behavior that you expect a Windows desktop to include. This means full multitasking (no background suspension or termination), full system access (to the extent that your user permissions allow), resizable non-maximized windows, Aero snap, pinned taskbar icons, alt-tab—it's all still there and it all still works.

The bad news is that the various pieces of the operating system do not in fact mesh together smoothly; the seams, especially between the Metro and legacy interfaces, remain obvious and jarring. For desktop users, the experience remains decidedly mixed.

Let's run through the most common interface elements and see how Windows 8 fixes old problems—and creates new ones of its own.

A "Start menu" for the tablet age

The behavior of Windows 8 when running and switching between applications has not changed much. When it comes to launching applications, however, the changes are unavoidably in-your-face.

Instead of the Start menu, we have the Start screen. Depending on your screen resolution, the old Start menu occupied somewhere between a hefty chunk (about a third or so) and a small portion of the screen. If you use Windows 8, you can't help but use the Start screen; the system even shows it immediately after you log in. (This is configurable; you can elect to show the desktop instead, and Windows Server 2012 boots to the desktop by default).

The Start screen and Start menu exist to do essentially the same thing. Although their presentation differs, they both launch programs. Both split those programs into two "kinds," a limited selection of pinned or promoted programs and a comprehensive "all programs" view that contains all applications installed.

The traditional Windows 7 Start menu

The traditional Start menu doesn't just depend on pinned programs. It devotes much of its space to programs that you use regularly, using some algorithm to determine which applications make the grade and in which order they appear. On the one hand, this means that the Start menu is automatically populated with icons for programs that you use often. On the other hand, its appearance becomes unpredictable—applications can bubble up onto the list or drop off out of sight. The pinned area, controlled by the user (applications can't pin themselves on installation), remains more controlled.

The Windows 7 Start menu with a bunch of settings changed

The Start screen has no recently used feature, but it allows a much greater number of applications to be pinned and positioned in 2D space. This makes it more predictable—the system won't discard a program icon unexpectedly because it thinks you use something else more often—but it also means that more care must be taken to actually organize the page the way you want. Applications also get pinned automatically when installed.

This can be a little unfortunate when installing large desktop applications, as many of them dump a whole load of icons onto the Start screen. Given the way that the Start screen's layout is both personal and customizable, this is a little offensive; I would prefer to see a kind of optional synthetic group that contains most-recently-used applications and that picked up newly installed programs in the way that the Start menu does. Everything outside this group would retain the position and layout that I specified, restricting the randomness and icon spraying to one specific section of the Start screen.

Organizing the pinned icons is also a little weird. Although it doesn't immediately look this way, each group on the screen is internally made out of columns. Each column is the width of a wide tile. You have to fill up one column with a mix of narrow and wide tiles before you can move on to the next column. This can make organizing the tiles the way you want a bit harder than anticipated. It absolutely prevents certain layouts from being constructed, too—a wide tile can't span two of the invisible columns.

Microsoft may have some secret rationale for doing things this way, but if it does, I don't know what it is.

All Programs

For programs that aren't accessible from the main screen, both the Start menu and Start screen make you delve into "All Programs."

All Programs has never been much fun. In Windows XP and below, the regular flyout menus scaled atrociously. Systems with lots of software installed would have menus so tall that they filled the entire screen and then some, spilling into multiple columns. This was particularly exciting when you had so many entries that they ran into the right-hand edge of the screen, at which point they started opening to the left.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 took a step backwards with a weird "in-place" scrollable menu that prevented you from even seeing the whole set of installed programs at once. It also pulled awesome stunts like "not letting you see the name of the program you want to open."

Windows 7's Start Menu had plenty of flaws. I have no idea which of those icons is what.

The Start screen's All Programs—or rather, All Apps, as every program is now an "app" these days—takes some steps forward and some back. It makes better use of space than the menus in Windows Vista and Windows 7, especially as the Start screen supports "semantic zoom." But it can still be unwieldy if you have an enormous number of programs installed. At least it doesn't degrade into backwards-opening menus the way Windows XP could, but it will unfortunately still truncate program names.

Overall, it works quite well, but it has one peculiar drawback that might just be an oversight: there's apparently no way to dismiss it. If you decide that you want to back out and return to the regular start screen, there's no "back" button (as in the Windows Vista and Window 7 Start menu) or other provision to revert. You can use the standard system features to bring up the Start screen—the charms or the Windows key or the hot corner—but to me, at least, this feels unnatural. All Apps is, logically, a part of the Start screen, just a sort of different mode. I don't intuitively expect the charms to undo that mode switch.

The solution that Microsoft provided to the way the Start menu breaks down with large numbers of applications is search. Start menu search works in Windows 8 in much the same way as it does in Windows Vista and Windows 7—on the Start screen, you just start typing.

There are some differences, of course. The searchable Start menu was configurable, so you could enable integrated whole-system search results and use it as your one-stop shop for computer searching. I did this and grew to depend on it.

Not so with Windows 8, which has three filtered search views ("apps," which is the default, "settings," and "files"). If you really want to search files rather than apps, you have to type your search term, hit tab to switch the focus to the right-hand bar, then down arrow to select files, then tab again to move to the file selector. Sure, you could use the mouse, but the great joy of searchable Start is that you don't have to lift your hands from the keyboard. The lack of customizability is a great shame; I would much prefer to have a "search all" that grouped its results into apps, settings, and files.

As different as the Start screen looks, it performs the same function as the Start menu, and it performs it in substantially the same way. Some problems it solves a little better, some a little worse, but what it doesn't do is require any great shift in how programs are launched.

The fullscreen issue

Operationally, the Start screen and Start menu are similar, with the major functional areas of the Start menu having direct counterparts in the Start screen. One aspect of the Start screen's appearance, however, raises hackles: like everything else Metro, it's fullscreen.

When the Start screen is up, you can't see anything else on your primary monitor. This provokes two complaints: it covers up things people want to look at, and it's jarring to have the major switch.

Both of these are true, but how problematic they are is less clear. The Start menu is already always-on-top and in the foreground, meaning that it covers up a big chunk of the screen anyway. As with any other menu, once you click away it collapses. This greatly limits what can be done while the Start menu is open. You can't, for example, open the Start menu, then click in an e-mail or on a Web page without also collapsing the menu. It might not be possible to simultaneously use an app while the Start screen is open, but the same is in practice true of the Start menu.

As for the "shock" from switching to a fullscreen Start screen, the impact of this will depend greatly on how you use your computer. If your windows are mainly maximized (or at least large) then it's not so very different from simply switching between two windows. The Start screen might be a little more colorful than a Word document, say, but it's hardly a standout among webpages, media players, or even a lot of e-mails.

Those who like lots of smaller windows will find the fullscreen Start screen more unwelcome. It shouldn't change how they use their computers at all, since as soon as they launch an application the Start screen will go away, but it certainly doesn't fit with their preferences.

The fullscreen approach also has implications for usability. In general, targets are easier to hit the larger they are, and they're easier to hit the closer they are to the pointer (that is, small mouse movements are more accurate than large ones). The Start menu's targets are all relatively close to the mouse, but are relatively small in one direction (wide, but not tall). The Start menu makes its targets bigger, but because they're spread across the full width of the screen, they're further away.

Microsoft argues that the new design is, overall, a net win: although you have to move the mouse a little further, this is more than offset by the larger targets, producing targets that are easier to hit. In practice I haven't found it to matter; I could hit the targets on the Start menu easily, and I can hit the targets on the Start screen easily.

Only for tablet users?

The Start screen's design has plainly been influenced by the need to cater to tablet users. Big targets, fullscreen graphics, panning, zooming, and a move away from a traditional menu—these all meet the needs of touch users.

Is that a problem for desktop users? I don't think so. The new design may have been driven by the needs of touch, but it doesn't make the mouse any worse, and in some ways makes it better. I think pinned programs work better with the Start screen, and the All Programs view doesn't degrade quite as horribly as the old Start menu when filled with hundreds of icons. It's not all good; in particular, I miss the automatic promotion of recently used items. But it works, and for the most part, it works well.

Windows 7's Start Menu has never been very usable if you delve into "All Programs"

It's not perfect, but neither is the Start menu. Having used Windows 8 quite a bit for a number of weeks (not quite full-time, but routinely, for hours each day), I think the Start screen works at least as well as the Start menu ever did. Once Windows 8 Metro apps become more abundant and my pinned apps thus become more useful, I think the Start screen will be a clear winner.

318 Reader Comments

PPS ...And If anyone wonders why this "movement" is so tsunami-like, besides the marketing power of the duopolists, consider that interface designers (occasionally referred to by themselves as "user experience" designers when they are seeking universal justifications, as kings claimed divine rights ordained by God) are one of the most herd instinct-afflicted species on this earth. The Monopoly of Ideas is their game.

Today's designers are not creators or innovators, they're basically an offshoot of systems engineers who discovered that visualizing problems made them more solvable. Interface designers, among the most evolutionarily "advanced," are not into inventing better ways of using our machines. They're into tinkering and making incremental changes whose apparent import is magnified, but whose value is not amplified, by the fact that the designs they promulgate are so front and center -- in the case of the new interfaces, hogging the entire visual field so that there are no remnants of more satisfying alternatives to compete with this newest version of 1950's Swiss design.

Designers are trendy, and the Metro/Skype/iOS look is merely the latest trend. This too shall pass, hopefully soon, allowing people who really understand how human beings seek, perceive, share, and work with information to get back into the conversation.

Meanwhile the design schools, design conferences, and trade journals -- thankfully not Ars Technica, which has consistently been more principled -- are maintaining the Emperor's New Clothes fiction that with these new interfaces, things are getting better, that change is valid for its own sake, that because millions of people can be compelled or manipulated to do something (even if it's not in their own best interests), it's the right thing to do. Our apish behavioral instincts often get the better of us. This is one of those times, the new Jurassic Era. Bring on the technological equivalent of an asteroid impact -- it's time for a restart.

Bob, Lion isn't as bad as all that. The iOS-type elements don't encroach all that much, and when they do they're mildly annoying at best. It's nowhere near as disruptive and radical a change as Windows 8.

Bob, Lion isn't as bad as all that. The iOS-type elements don't encroach all that much, and when they do they're mildly annoying at best. It's nowhere near as disruptive and radical a change as Windows 8.

Jordan, Lion sucks. Not to mention that the crappy interface drew attention away from the absolutely abysmal QA applied to Lion, which was consuming batteries and in some cases (mine, for example), overdriving the CPU to the point where it torched the logic board and destroyed SSDs in the process. Apple never directly acknowledged this situation though it was commonly known, destroying its former reputation for candor in how it relates to its customers.

Apple's decision to force its customers to "upgrade" to Lion or Mountain Lion or Catscratch Fever (George Orwell must be rolling in his grave) is more dictatorial than Microsoft's offering Win8 as an alternative to Win7. Snow Leopard is so clearly superior to Lion in every way that its extinction at Apple's hands should be considered almost criminal, a violation of the Endangered Species Act. No one champions Lion as they did the original Mac interface, designed by computer users who were designers, not designers who primarily use smartphones and tablets. The best one can say about it is that "it isn't as bad as all that."

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Yes, Jordan, it is as bad as all that. Lion and Mountain Lion are iOS writ large -- and written large, their lack of logical grammar is there for all to see. And it seems to be Apple's lemmingish trajectory.

Bob, Lion isn't as bad as all that. The iOS-type elements don't encroach all that much, and when they do they're mildly annoying at best. It's nowhere near as disruptive and radical a change as Windows 8.

Jordan, Lion sucks. Not to mention that the crappy interface drew attention away from the absolutely abysmal QA applied to Lion, which was consuming batteries and in some cases (mine, for example), overdriving the CPU to the point where it torched the logic board and destroyed SSDs in the process. Apple never directly acknowledged this situation though it was commonly known, destroying its former reputation for candor in how it relates to its customers.

Apple's decision to force its customers to "upgrade" to Lion or Mountain Lion or Catscratch Fever (George Orwell must be rolling in his grave) is more dictatorial than Microsoft's offering Win8 as an alternative to Win7. Snow Leopard is so clearly superior to Lion in every way that its extinction at Apple's hands should be considered almost criminal, a violation of the Endangered Species Act. No one champions Lion as they did the original Mac interface, designed by computer users who were designers, not designers who primarily use smartphones and tablets. The best they can say about it is that "it isn't as bad as all that."

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Yes, Jordan, it is as bad as all that. Lion and Mountain Lion are iOS writ large -- and written large, their lack of logical grammar is there for all to see.

We won't even bother to discuss Skype. It's a dead man walking.

Well, I disagree, but I'm obviously not going to get anywhere given your didactic mode. Apparently these are facts and not opinions and you are in full possession of them while I'm not, so I guess I can't win.

In my opinion, the biggest problem I have with Windows 8 is the start screen. It swallows up my screen when the start menu (on my 2560x1600 resolution 30" monitor) took up a minuscule amount of space to accomplish the same thing; now admittedly I adjusted my settings so that the Windows 7 start menu did NOT show frequently used programs (precisely to avoid randomness) and set it up so I pinned all my apps I used even regularly on it, but hey... it worked. It was clear. It was concise. It took a small amount of space and everything was a click away. Plus, when I needed to have a view of what was going on with the desktop, I could see it while I did anything. Start menu, whatever, I always had a view of the rest of the computer and its windows.

Windows 8 tosses all that out for a start screen it splashes across the entire screen. I have to move farther, I have to deal with crappy layout issues (can't arrange without first filling a column?), and I get NOTHING for my trouble. Hell, even the search is inferior by default.

You act like the start screen isn't "that bad," but it isn't good. That's the problem. You give up advantages of the start menu and you get... NOTHING. You said it yourself. You said the start screen doesn't stop the ugly parts of the start menu and yet it doesn't even give you the advantages of the start menu, either. So you lose things and you gain... nothing. No, I don't think the promise of Windows apps (not applications) or the Metro apps or whatever you want to call them is any promise at all. I don't think I'll love having my favorite application "make the transition" to an app that I can only duo-task (not multitask) on my 30" 2560x1600 resolution screen. I am not bragging about my monitor; I'm trying to emphasize how ridiculous it is to put this kind of restriction on a huge screen. This is a restriction made for tablets, for 10" or 3.5" touchscreen enabled devices. There's a reason Apple didn't just port iOS over to their computers and call it a day.

That you can sit there and shrug away the loss of efficiency of the proper use of the start menu for a screen-swallowing start screen for users that are NOT running 1366x768 or smaller screens but then worry about multimonitor users (who have to be a small a percentage of users like 30" monitor owners), well it's kind of ridiculous.

But all of that is just MY personal concern. The thing that amuses me most is that Microsoft doesn't even see the real problem with Windows 8. And they won't, not until it's far too late for them to do anything but begin the slow spiral into irrelevance. That is, they're proving Apple's point for them. iPad's and iPhone's continue to be secondary devices for most users. Apple talks big about the post-PC era, but they still sell PC's. Microsoft talks the talk about the tablet being a PC, but then they turn the PC into a tablet. They SAY that the tablet is a PC, but they prove that by turning the PC into a tablet. They're validating Apple's design choices for the iPad and arguing they're superior for PC's, too. Not just tablet PC's, though. All PC's.

Next, when Apple's iOS continues to dominate, users will now be conditioned to think, "Well, PC's are tablets and tablets are PC's, so I enjoy my iOS experience more than my Windows 8 experience." And they will be open and ready to dumping their PC's because Microsoft made the two interchangeable. Apple made the argument, but Microsoft made this reality. Now all Apple has to do is continue to win and the PC in the eyes of many will lose.

All because Microsoft thought they could out-Apple Apple on Apple's home turf. And they can't. They've NEVER done it before and they'll never do it. Even back in the day, Microsoft won by doing what Apple would not do. Somewhere along the way, Balmer forgot this and decided to fight Apple by trying to be Apple and no company has succeeded in doing that. Not Microsoft, not Google, not any OEM, especially not Samsung, and not Amazon.

The more you fight the fight on Apple's terms, the more you validate their position and the more people see you as a knockoff and want "the real thing." And the more open they become to believing their argument. Especially when Apple can now say and be wholly honest that Microsoft too believes that the tablet requires real changes and iOS--unlike Windows 8--is built from the ground up for tablets.

Windows 8 is just enough tablet-focused to screw the desktop and laptop users in a number of obvious ways, but not enough tablet-focused to be superior to iOS or Android. Windows 8 is just enough tablet-focused to make people realize that Microsoft too believes tablets are the future, but not enough tablet-focused to make people choose it over iOS.

This is the most dangerous hybrid ever and it's going to drive iPad adoption because it validates everything Apple's been saying since the iPad launched. Beat the iPad? Windows 8 will ensure the decline of the PC and the rise of the iPad. And the most amusing part is when Steve Balmer will scream at people when it happens and MS will continue to not fire him for incompetence.

Wow, HDO, that's pretty much how I see things at Apple under Steve Jobs in his declining years and now under Scott Cook as Über-Value-Chain Meister. Looking to emulate the Asians and their minimalist interfaces. Apple loves to talk about how well it regards its computer users who have gotten it through more than one hard time, but then it likes to follow up the kudos with mention of how computer sales are only a fraction of toy sales, after which it foists a yet-more-disappointing interface on us. So if everyone's headed in wrong directions and are proud of it, what to do?

My colleagues in Scandinavia, some of the most sophisticated technologists I know have one answer. They dumped their toys and gadgets. They talk to me (an admittedly non-marketing department way to find things out) that their personal productivity goes up and they have more free time to themselves. Over on Forbes, the genius commentator on innovation and blogger Haydn Shaughnessy reports having done the same, with equally positive results. Now if some Other Company will hire these folks and put their newly rediscovered free time to good use developing computers again, we'd be in pig heaven.

Seriously, if the Duopoly are tired of supporting computerists, spin off the units that do and let them be the very best they can. Subordinating them to gadget designers is neither economically sensible or sustainable.

In my opinion, the biggest problem I have with Windows 8 is the start screen. It swallows up my screen when the start menu (on my 2560x1600 resolution 30" monitor) took up a minuscule amount of space to accomplish the same thing; now admittedly I adjusted my settings so that the Windows 7 start menu did NOT show frequently used programs (precisely to avoid randomness) and set it up so I pinned all my apps I used even regularly on it, but hey... it worked. It was clear. It was concise. It took a small amount of space and everything was a click away. Plus, when I needed to have a view of what was going on with the desktop, I could see it while I did anything. Start menu, whatever, I always had a view of the rest of the computer and its windows.

Windows 8 tosses all that out for a start screen it splashes across the entire screen. I have to move farther, I have to deal with crappy layout issues (can't arrange without first filling a column?), and I get NOTHING for my trouble. Hell, even the search is inferior by default.

You act like the start screen isn't "that bad," but it isn't good. That's the problem. You give up advantages of the start menu and you get... NOTHING. You said it yourself. You said the start screen doesn't stop the ugly parts of the start menu and yet it doesn't even give you the advantages of the start menu, either. So you lose things and you gain... nothing. No, I don't think the promise of Windows apps (not applications) or the Metro apps or whatever you want to call them is any promise at all. I don't think I'll love having my favorite application "make the transition" to an app that I can only duo-task (not multitask) on my 30" 2560x1600 resolution screen. I am not bragging about my monitor; I'm trying to emphasize how ridiculous it is to put this kind of restriction on a huge screen. This is a restriction made for tablets, for 10" or 3.5" touchscreen enabled devices.

Sums it up for myself fairly well.

The only thing i would add to this is i also hate clutter, both in real life and on my "desktop". I have no icons, sat there, it's just a nice orderly empty space with a nice looking picture as a background. Taking that away and forcing me to look directly at a multitude of "icons" rankles me for some reason.

I would take no issue with it on my phone, or on a tablet, but on a larger display i find myself at a loss to describe how much it annoys me.

Don't get me wrong, what i've seen and used of Windows 8 is good in the background (aside from the terrible search), and some of the newer features are good. It's just that damn "fill my screen with icons" UI that rankles me. Until Microsoft offer me an option to completely disable that new "feature" i'll refrain from W8.

It's still clunkier than my preferred method of launching applications under OS X. Command+Space, type a couple letter, and hit enter. It works using the stock Spotlight function, or with the better Alfred app. I think there's a Windows option, called Launchy or something like that, along similar lines. There are some cases where browsing through a list is nice, but if you're looking for something specific, using a menu of any kind seems frustratingly slow.

I'm pretty sure osx copied that from Windows, you can hit windows key (no need for funny key combo) then start typing your program name + enter since Vista.

"what's the point of giving desktop users Metro apps at all?"This. We don't need, want, or like Metro, so why shove in down our throats?No matter how I try to understand it, it just seems like an "OS inside of an OS" thing, so the only way for me to perceive it is as a flashy, poorly designed sandbox or VM.

I love what MS did with the file transfer windows, and the task manager looks pretty good too (assuming you don't have to click on "more details" every time you open it to view it in all it's splendour and can use a colour other than yellow to indicate intensity).

I don't really get the ribbon thing (mainly because I still don't understand why they aren't just called tabs, since that's what they clearly are), but I could get used to them, as long as I can insert customised commands (ie play with KMPlayer for audio/video).On a side note, when will MS finally implement a hash column???

For the desktop, Microsoft, and Gnome have forgotten this it would seem.

Thankfully Windows has been stable since W2K and pretty secure since Vista. So until user land applications require Windows 8, I get to just avoid the whole mess.

In Linux land I can stick other window managers thankfully. What is more shocking about the Linux push for touch is I don't predict any market share, so they have wasted oodles of developer time making things worse for multitasking on workstations (IE home of the typical base Linux user), for the consumer end which they are terribly unlikely to get any traction in because of PR/ads.

After several days of angst I discovered StartMenu7. There after I used Win 8 for several weeks. Works good. All my software ran beautifully. My old printer and scanner worked fine. Under the "hood" Win 8 has some great improvements. With StartMenu7 I never have to use that messed up metro. I am sure that very soon if Microsoft does not, others will make the fix so Win 8 becomes useful and superior. I mastered it just fine . . .

It gives me a headache just looking at all this crap. The reality is that windows is just as un-intuitive, engineer driven ugly bloatware as it has always been. I'm sure the techtards will love it because it makes them more valuable in their organizations in regards to support and training but seriously, what a POS. As to the metro UI, it looks like it was designed by someone with Attention Deficit Disorder.

After several days of angst I discovered StartMenu7. There after I used Win 8 for several weeks. Works good. All my software ran beautifully. My old printer and scanner worked fine. Under the "hood" Win 8 has some great improvements. With StartMenu7 I never have to use that messed up metro. I am sure that very soon if Microsoft does not, others will make the fix so Win 8 becomes useful and superior. I mastered it just fine . . .

It seems the replacement of the start menu is to drive people to the Metro app store and all about profit. Vote against the gutting of our OS by • Not buying Windows 8 and not buying any computer with Windows 8 preinstalled (or a Win 7 disk option, being realistic).• Not buying any Metro apps • Not developing or selling on the Metro store.

Tell Microsoft we like the free market the way it is and don’t need another Apple overlord to tell us what programs we can and can’t install on our home PC’s.

Will someone please fire Steve Ballmer? Seriously, when undergoing a project as big as a major OS release, you need to have a singular designer in charge of the GUI to give it a more useable appearance. This stitched-together frankenstein of a GUI doesn't work because the guy at the top of the org chart is inept, and feels that it's ok to sell something this gaudy and unfinished to millions of customers. First Vista, then this. May as well pin the blame on Steve for Win ME too.

Bob, you're completely right about Lion. It deleted audio files when I went to save a live recording session in Logic, so it's less reliable than 10.6.8. Changing how the scroll wheel works on the mouse was a ridiculous and unnecessary change. Some apps I've used for years under OSX no longer function. That's why I keep both on my Mac Pro so I can switch out of Lion when I don't need to use it.

Lostlore: I'm already buying apps on OSX, Win7, and IOS. I'm not sure I want to buy apps for yet another platform (Metro).

I am really happy with the performance of Windows 8 on my Acer Aspire 522 netbook featuring an AMD APU. The netbook didn't come with bluetooth so i bought a mini usb Targus bluetooth that used to hang with Win7 during the start-up because of the BIOS, now I can leave it in all the time because of the way Win 8 works(an unhappy accident). I also like the fast start-up of Win 8 for those that turn their PC's off at night!!

Now part of the reason I am pi$$ed at Microsoft is their ludicrous prices for their OS. They crippled the netbook market with Win 7 starter and now they expect me to pay$200 Australian to upgrade to Home Premium just so I can use 4 gigs of ram; instead I have installed Windows 8 CP.

Metro Apps won't work because my monitor is 1200x720p, another microsoft blunder (48 pixels short). I am not using metro anyway and I get by using shortcuts, windows x, windows c, windows d, windows p, Why mouse around when shortcuts will do more for less. I dont give a rats about mouse-accessing charms and hot corners cos I always use keyboard shortcuts, they are faster and more efficient!!

I rarely get to use the ugly metro unless I am searching, but am putting up with cos it is a lot better than win 7 starter!!!!

But yeah there is obvious schizoprenia going on with the UI design, but the performance is fantastic unlike Vista which was always crashing (even on new hardware) and a real buggy dog of an OS.

Now I am willing to go with Win8 even with the UI schizo oversights if it is the right price. I think $50 would be the max.

I also use Lion and have been really disappointed with the bugs and crashing. My Mac mini is running hot a lot of the time because some programs seem to run at 100% for some unknown reason. One other frustrating bug was the screen not waking up over display port (two monitors fixed this). Audacity was crashing a lot and getting access to preferences was made more difficult. Lion is certainly the Vista of OS X and I have been using Macs since 2002, so have been really upset with the decrease in quality. Full screen mode is really frustrating and useless particularly when you use 2 screens.

The comparison with Lion (and Mountain Lion) is not really relevant. Simply because with Windows 8, Microsoft is actually going in the direction that Apple publicly said it wouldn't.

When the iPad came out, one of the big point was that for the device to be of any good, it need a OS dedicated and build for the ground up for multitouch screens. The reason why the iPad is the first tablet to be successfull is because the iPad is the first one with a real touchscreen OS.

Lion is not making OS X a "clone" of iOS, it is simply translating some functionality introduced in iOS to a "mt+k" interface. OS X is dedicated to "mt+k", iOS to touch.

With Windows 8, Microsoft is basically doing the opposite, trying to build an hybrid OS that will work on tablets and desktops, with touchscreen and "mt+k". Basically they are simply commiting more into the exact same path they tried with previous unsuccessful Windows tablets.

Apple have proven that having different OS each one commited to a particular input device work and can be very successful.

Microsoft is trying something that failed before and that is yet to really work once. Not that it will fail necessarily, but really they still have to prove that Windows 8 make sense.

Whel perhaps Windows 7 will last us until 2020 lol. Maybe I'm the only person who feels this way, but in all honesty, I think that for day to day use, touch screen input is slower, less accurate, requires more effort and best case scenario I feel like I'm using a jumbo calculator made for people with large unwieldy fingers. My fingers aren't even particularly large or unwieldy (I don't think).

A better organized start menu/screen whatever might not be a bad idea. I just think that "touch" is just a modern fad. I can tense my wrist slightly and my pointer moves from one corner of the screen to the other in an instant. I rarely fail to click the correct link or button. Why would I want to lift up my arm and jab at the screen when I have such a brilliant and simple input device.

My concern is that Win 8 will sacrifice usability for touch controls that I'm not really interested in. Even if my monitor right now had touch input, why would I want to use it? I can't figure it out.

My concern is that Win 8 will sacrifice usability for touch controls that I'm not really interested in. Even if my monitor right now had touch input, why would I want to use it? I can't figure it out.

Yeah, I don't understand why you would want a touchscreen for a vertically-oriented monitor on your desk - your arm gets tired even after just a few minutes. Not that you would have to do everything via touch, but even just switching from keyboard+mouse to touch and back and forth would get tiring (plus it's slower). I think Apple's method of eschewing touchscreen monitors for giant (horizontal!) trackpads makes a lot more sense.

Windows 8 is taking away functions that I use all of the time and giving me nothing that I want. I may be somewhat unusual in how I use Windows. But hopefully few people are not going to find much good in it and Windows 8 will find the fate that it deserves.

My most significant concern regarding Win8 is that Microsoft/Windows app store is not optional. And it means: only those Metro apps which Microsoft accepts can be installed to Windows 8, and only with the terms Microsoft provides. It will prevent a huge amount of great opensource or simple free apps to appear in the store - and in any Windows 8 system.

I always loved Windows for it's openness and that it allowed so many simple but powerful utility / tool apps like Oscar (subtitle searcher) or Launchy (quick launcher). These are the small missing peaces of Windows what made it the perfect productivity system (at least for me) - these little utility apps.

I love Windows 7, and I love the enhancements in Windows 8 (tried both the Developer and the Consumer previews) but I don't like the new restrictions.

1. Allow metro apps on any screen.2. Use Double WIN key like double clicking on the button on an ios device to bring up all of the points on the side of the screen at once including charms etc with larger targets. this will allow much better multi-mon support.3. Bring back the start menu in desktop mode... but instead of the old way, make it look like a Windows Phone 7 screen with vertical scrolling with the same stuff on it that the main start screen has, just vertical.

If they just made these simple improvements then for us technical users that use multiple monitors life would be great. Everything else is better and faster.

First, on point to the article: I find it both appalling and unsurprising that the corner targets are impossibly finicky. At least since MSWindows XP, menus have been ridiculously finicky about mouse motions, and I often accidentally skip off of, and thus lose, a menu or submenu due to an inadvertent motion on my part, or due to the craptastic mouse drivers (or whichever part of the software controls how MSWindows translates the mouse sensor data to on-screen pointer movements). The fact that they didn't take into consideration human sloppiness when designing the algorithms (I'm thinking of the Mac OS way of saying any motion that is more down than sideways counts as "down" for menu purposes, even if you slip off the menu, so you can still use it; and any motion that is more sideways than down is good enough to scoot over onto a submenu)--and haven't fixed this as recently as MSWindows 7--makes me unsurprised that MSWindows 8 expects similar superhuman mousing precision in other parts of the interface.

In response to another comment: yes, the ribbon is arguably superior to toolbars. I'll give you that. But it didn't replace toolbars. It replaced toolbars + menus. And while it may be superior for learning in the first place, I find it often less efficient to use once I've learned the software and, at best, merely as efficient. If we still had menus, and the ribbon was an adjunct to them (just as the toolbar and menus basically did all the same things in two different ways in previous versions), I wouldn't be complaining about the ribbon. And I'd just turn it off, same as I've generally stripped most of the buttons off the toolbars and only left the few that are simple binary states and don't have a keyboard equivalent (or are actual state-changing tools, like the various tools in Illustrator).

Congratulations, Ballmer & Co, you've guaranteed I use Fedora as my OS/DE when I do my next build. I was looking for an excuse to abandon Microsoft and after playing with the Consumer Preview all weekend I won't be turning back.

It seems the replacement of the start menu is to drive people to the Metro app store and all about profit. Vote against the gutting of our OS by • Not buying Windows 8 and not buying any computer with Windows 8 preinstalled (or a Win 7 disk option, being realistic).• Not buying any Metro apps • Not developing or selling on the Metro store.

Tell Microsoft we like the free market the way it is and don’t need another Apple overlord to tell us what programs we can and can’t install on our home PC’s.

Does the Windows Store prohibit you from installing desktop programs? If not, then the Windows Store is another OPTION for those who like to have curated apps. It's far simpler for the average person to download it from the app store rather than searching endlessly on the web.

I find it incredibly funny when my girlfriend got her first MacBook Pro today. What's so funny? Well, she kept touching her screen like it was an iPad only to realize seconds later that it's not an iPad. I chuckle every time she does that, because it has becomes a habit for her with her iPad that has a keyboard case.

I think Windows 8 with metro apps will work wonderfully once touchscreen, in addition to keyboard and mouse, are more common on laptops. Say what you will, but people are more instinctive to touch with the advent of the iPad.

"Overall, it works quite well, but it has one peculiar drawback that might just be an oversight: there's apparently no way to dismiss it. If you decide that you want to back out and return to the regular start screen, there's no "back" button..."

I have noticed that too! Where is the back arrow up near the "Apps" label. Should be an easy fix MS....

"The only way to make the experience work smoothly is to ignore the Metro parts (aside from the Start screen). And if you're going to do that, what's the point of giving desktop users Metro apps at all?"

Long live Windows 7 for Desktop users! Nice rant Peter! Of course, probably useless since Microsoft seems to be getting a Job's mentality! Do it the Job's way or get out of here! Many of the things you mentioned would really be easy to fix, or at least give the user a choice, if MS wanted to.

Microsoft out to make a wishlist site and actually do some of the things people want done if they can do it without breaking something else! W8 could evolve! Now that would be something...

I run triple head too! Life would really be simpler if I ran just one big monitor. But that said, I have been running W8 on Virtualbox on single monitor. Probably need to install it on a separate drive and dual boot to determine how it behaves in triple monitor config before deciding if to upgrade or not.

The author writes . . . "A stray double click there will remove all the window's controls. I'm sure this feature will continue to confuse and perplex Windows users as it has already done for many years."

. . . gee, why didn't he also mention what to do to restore the menus? Duh!